The Giants’ Dance. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

to know him one day.’

      Will took a tallow dip, passed behind the inglenook and the snug door opened at Morann’s touch. The space inside was soon golden with candlelight. They slaked their throats with first-mash ale, and then set to work on a supper of spoon-meat, barley bread and cold roast goose before they pushed their bowls and trenchers away from them and sat back content.

      ‘Old Dimmet’s right about something needful being at the root of Gwydion’s going,’ Morann said. Once more he took out his knife and laid it on the table before him. ‘There’s talk of Commissioners riding abroad all up and down the Realm. Folk are worried. They’re talking about war everywhere you care to go.’

      Will knew that Morann meant Commissioners of Array, the officers that were sent out in the king’s name to raise an army. ‘It must be serious if they’re coming for men in the middle of harvest,’ he said. ‘Who’ll gather in the crop if all the able-bodied men are marched off the land?’

      Morann lowered his voice. ‘Gathered in or not, the Commissioners will have their men in the end. Have you ever known a lord starve because of a bad harvest? Likewise, it’s the churl, the common man, and those who depend on him, who come most to grief when a war begins.’

      ‘That’s right enough.’

      ‘It’s said that in Trinovant the Sightless Ones are offering large loans. They lend only to lords, so what does that tell you?’ Morann’s eyes twinkled. ‘If lords are borrowing gold, it’s for only one purpose.’

      Will laced his fingers together, stretched and yawned. ‘They’ll spend gold enough on the feeding and equipping of soldiers, but it’s a risk they care to take. They go to war in hope to gain the lands held by their enemies.’

      The large green stone in Morann’s ring seemed to glow with crystal fire, and his voice became passionate. ‘I tell you, Willand, the queen has spent most of the past four years trying every way to undermine Duke Richard’s rule as Lord Protector. If he’s stopped taking Master Gwydion’s good advice there’ll be a clash soon. That’s why I must be on my way tomorrow.’

      ‘Not you too?’ Will’s spirit rebelled at the idea. ‘Am I to wait here all alone and do nothing?’

      ‘It can’t be helped. Master Gwydion asked me to go to Trinovant. I’m to do what I can to steady events. I could hardly refuse him, so I’ve agreed to speak to some friends I know there. They are people of influence who owe me a small debt of gratitude and are willing to pay it – which is the best kind of friend a man can have.’

      ‘What will these friends do?’

      ‘Tell me how things truly stand at court. It’s rumoured that the king’s latest insanity is ended. Perhaps it was a natural brain fever, but poison cannot be ruled out, and Master Gwydion suspects that the queen has arranged for spells to be cast upon his mind to make him appear well again.’

      ‘She’s done that kind of thing before, and that was at Maskull’s prompting.’

      ‘These days Master Gwydion sees the sorcerer’s hand in everything.’

      Will took the remark without comment and thought to console himself with a slice of cheese. He reached out for Morann’s knife, which was handy, but when he came to cut the cheese the blade would not enter.

      ‘Either this cheese is a lot older than I thought,’ Will said, frowning at the knife, ‘or your steel has lost its edge.’

      Morann laughed. ‘Do not worry yourself. Being a knife-grinder I’m never far from a whetstone.’

      Will tried again, but looked up, seeing the cheese rind was untouched. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

      ‘Nothing’s wrong with it. What you have in your hand is the second most precious item that I have ever clapped eyes upon.’

      ‘This old knife?’

      ‘It’s an old knife, surely, but not any old knife. This knife has been sharpened on the Whetstone of Tudwal, which is one of the spoils that was brought forth from Annuin by Great Arthur of old.’

      Will’s interest deepened. ‘Master Gwydion has spoken many times of prophecies that concern Great Arthur, but he’s never told me much.’

      Morann sat back in his chair and began to sing,

      ‘Where is the man who is mightier?

      The four winds tell it not!

      When greater the treasures that were taken?

      Won in war and fair fight.

      How bright was the blessing

      Brought upon Albion?

      Whose land now shall be the Wasteland?

      Before Great Arthur led,

      the Cauldron swirled…

      Before Great Arthur sailed,

      the Sword smote…

      Before Great Arthur entered,

      the Staff upheld…

      Before Great Arthur’s coming,

      the Star shone…

      ‘Aye, Willand. In those early days the Hallows were bound, blind and in darkness all, down in Annuin, in the Realm Below.

      ‘The spoils were brought out by Arthur, upon his ship,’ he said as if half remembering. ‘Out from a sea cave in the north. The Cave of Finglas, which was then a mouth into the Realm Below…

      ‘Many adventurers sailed with Great Arthur aboard the ship Prydwen. Bards, warriors and harpers – great men of old, they were! Among them, the famous Wordmaster Taliesin, who was one of seven who survived to tell the tale. He wrought a great poem about it called “The Breaking of the Dark”. Much went missing from the Black Book in the days when giants ruled the land of Albion, yet there was enough of it remaining for it to speak of a promise to be redeemed – a king shall come, a king whose forewarning sign shall be the drawing forth of a sword from a stone.’ And Morann sang again,

      ‘Child of magical union,

      Hidden among hunters, weaned upon warriors.

      Brave son of a poisoned father,

      Sent to the city, tried at the tourney.

      A king of tender years,

      Sired by a sovereign, but made by Merlyn,

      Drew he forth Branstock,

      Great Arthur, the once and future king…’

      The loremaster’s eyes softened, and he smiled. ‘So you see, Willand, you are not the only one to have been named in the Black Book. Master Gwydion is there too, when Master Merlyn was his name.’

      Will tried to smile back. ‘It’s an uncomfortable feeling sometimes knowing that whatever path you choose, the outcome has long been decided.’

      ‘Don’t think that! Master Gwydion did not mean that when he said your life was hardly your own, only that you were mantled with duties and responsibilities that are heavier than those of most men. But your choices have always been free. It’s not the fulfilment of prophecies that matters, so much as the manner in which they are fulfilled. That’s where final outcomes are decided. Consider the next fragment of the Black Book in which we hear of Great Arthur’s passing, there by the lakeshore of Llyn Llydaw. He made another promise without fear or faltering, one that was to last a thousand years. The verses tell it thus:

      ‘The worth of my life, such that it be,

      Has chained the future to a fateful turn.

       When comes the final catastrophe,

      Then, only then, shall I return!’

      ‘When rises the greatest need I shall come again…’ Will whispered in the true tongue.